Healthcare goes digital. In 2018 theHealthcare spending on digital has risen by 7% to 1,39 billion euros after the +2% recorded in 2017.
A research by theDigital Innovation Observatory in Healthcare of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, presented this morning in Milan as part of the conference "Connected Care: the citizen at the center of the digital experience".
In detail, the health facilities last year have invested in digital 970 million euros, a figure three times higher than that allocated by the Regions (330 million, +3%). 75,5 million were spent by general practitioners (1,606 per doctor). Bringing up the rear, paradoxically, the Ministry of Health which in 2018 invested 16,7 million euros in digital technology.
How was this money spent? The largest budget was allocated to departmental systems (IT supports for diagnostic imaging and laboratory analyses) and to electronic health record, on which respectively 97 and 50 million euro have been invested, while slowly medicine begins to discover also Artificial Intelligence, for which 7 million euros have been allocated. In particular, healthcare facilities have adopted AI applications, even if in most cases these are first experiments, especially based on image processing to carry out diagnostic decision support activities (present in 40% of the companies in the sample) and free text (24%).
However, it is not only the world of medicine that is opening up to digital, but also ordinary citizens who use digital tools to take care of their health. Beyond four out of ten citizens (41%) use coaching apps or wearable devices to keep your health under control and improve your lifestyle. The smart watch, in particular, is the tool that has recorded the most significant increase (from 8% to about one in three citizens).
"The growth in spending on digital innovation in Healthcare is a comforting sign that confirms the strategic role of digital in innovating healthcare system processes - he says Mariano Corso, scientific director of the Digital Innovation Observatory in Healthcare -. The digital world is changing all phases of taking care of the patient, from prevention to treatment, up to post-hospitalization, through tools such as the Electronic Medical Record, Telemedicine, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Therapies. But to take full advantage of the opportunities, it is necessary to rethink the organization and governance of the system, develop staff skills and review the relationship between operators and patients in order to put the citizen at the center of prevention and treatment processes and allow for a better and more rapid access to health information and services”.
